Update: Troy makes a very good point in reminding me to link to "Free Our Beer", Cass Enright's blog that delves into the backwardness of Ontario's system in far more detail than I would ever have the patience to present.
Joe makes a very good point in his latest post "Twelve-Ounce Measures of Success in America":
...it occurs to me that neighborhood places like this are the real front lines of craft beer. Not the geekery, not the five-course beer dinners, and not the pricey rare releases. Those would be more like the captain's quarters where all the officers are chummy and there's a fellow in the corner playing violin. To carry the metaphor entirely too far. No, the trenches are in the dives, the airport bars, and the restaurants where the wife and kids want to eat...
I entirely agree. I have been roaming central NY for a few days now and have been offered a choice of craft beers on tap in every restaurant where we have taken the kids. The grocery store shelves have a great selection at honest prices and, if you want to hunt them out, there are specialty beer stores with stunning shelvage stockery. Although it is just over the border, it is a long way from my home and native land of Ontario where craft brewers are still working hard to get taps in bars let alone family restaurants. We don't have a culture of criticism socially so few in the media speak out or look at the bigger picture to ask aloud why we alone are so weak that we need monopolistic retailing, too much sameness in our food and drink, why we pay so much when others don't.
What really makes this stand out is that we are surrounded by Michigan, Quebec and New York - places with plenty of robust local pride and plenty of great adventurous good beer. I think the two are related. So, as Joe asks, where is the battle for better beer won or lost in your market? For me, it is lost at the border - the one I cross monthly to stock my stash with good beer not available. But it is also lost in the conversation where complacency and homers are happy enough with putting up with what you get. It is also lost in the breweries with every new launch of another boring amber ale.
It also seems to be the same battle that would have to be fought if you were trying to sell seafood, real BBQ or organic food. How do they fight to win? Hard work for sure but also staking a claim to be different and better not to mention telling the story the product that is fun, tasty and / or wholesome as well as home grown. I wonder if my homeland can handle such ideas. When I look at the neighbours and their sense of cultural self, I wonder if Ontarians have it in them to take on the same idea, to ask the difficult question: "why don't we deserve our own best?"